Figure 4.
Microscopic colonic sequelae in C. jejuni infected secondary abiotic IL-10−/− mice. Secondary abiotic IL-10−/− mice were perorally infected either with the C. jejuni 11168WT strain (closed circles) or the isogenic htrA mutant 11168HtrA−S197A (open circles) by gavage on days 0 and 1. The average numbers of colonic epithelial (A) apoptotic cells (positive for caspase-3, Casp3) and (B) proliferating/regenerating cells (positive for Ki67) from six high power fields (HPF, 400x magnification) per animal were assessed microscopically in immunohistochemically stained large intestinal paraffin sections at day 6 postinfection. Naive mice (open diamonds) served as uninfected controls. Medians (black bars), levels of significance (p-values) determined by the Mann-Whitney U-test and numbers of analyzed animals (in parentheses) are indicated. Data were pooled from four independent experiments.